Jessica Irvine, SMH

Jessica Irvine is economics writer for The Sydney Morning Herald where she writes regular opinion columns, compiles the weekly Irvine Index and is a member of the paper's editorial writing team. Jessica completed an honours degree in Economics (Social Sciences) at The University of Sydney, majoring in Political Economy and Philosophy. She worked at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in Canberra before deciding on a career in journalism. On joining the Herald's business section in 2005, she became custodian of the daily "dollar column" reporting movements in the Australian dollar. Some days it soared, some days it plummeted, but, if she's completely honest, most days it just stayed pretty much the same. In 2006 she was appointed the Herald's economics correspondent from the federal press gallery in Parliament House, Canberra. She arrived one week before Kevin Rudd deposed a teary-eyed and recently-bereaved Kim Beazley as Labor leader and left one year after Rudd was elected. Jessica now lives in Sydney and is a regular panellist on Channel 10's Meet the Press and Richard Glover's ABC 702 Drive program.